No. 63.J 9 



Similar exertions, though less effective, have been made by the til- 

 lers of the earth in every age, however benightedj and in every coun- 

 try, however subjected. The God of nature has given us a territory 

 stretching through fifty degrees of longitude, withaimot^t the breadth 

 of the temperate zone, embosoming numerous lakes, and traversed 

 by capacious rivers. Every variety of soil north of the tropics, and 

 every mineral resource, with mountain, forest and plain, are abun- 

 dantly supplied. We stand, in relation to this wide territor}'^, not un- 

 like the progenitor of our race in regard to the earth over which he 

 received dominion from the Almighty. He has permitted us to learn 

 wisdom from the rugged experience of almost sixty centuries, and to 

 establish a system of government, new and peculiar, which, while it 

 effectually secures personal rights and domestic tranquillity, does not 

 favor war, and is not adapted to aggression, which chastens avarice 

 and represses ambition, which favors equality, subdues individual 

 power, and stimulates, strengthens and combines the power of the 

 masses — a system resting on the consent, and kept in action only by 

 the agency of the governed. To these advantages is added a social 

 organization which rejects, in every form, the principles of involunta- 

 ry or reluctant labor and gradation among the members of the State, 

 and by offering equal rewards, calls forth the equal industry and en- 

 terprise of every citizen. These peculiarites of our political and so- 

 cial condition, indicate an era in civilization, and inspire a generous 

 confidence that it may be our privilege to open for our race the way 

 to a brighter and better destiny than has yet been attained. 



Hitherto, civilized men, enslaved or oppressed, have doubted 

 whether advancement from the savage state of existence was a bles- 

 sing, and have struggled for liberty as if mere liberty was the end 

 of human achievement. But we have learned that civil liberty is 

 only one of the conditions of human happiness, and is desirable 

 chiefly because it favors that social advancement which is the ever 

 fulfilling destiny of mankind. In every stage of that advancement 

 hitherto, agricultural improvement has been last, though it should 

 always be first. By agriculture, nations exist j it supports and clothes 

 mankind; it furnishes the resources for protection and defence, and 

 the means even of moral improvement and intellectual cultivation. 

 Portions of a community, cities, and even states, may exist by ex- 

 ercising the mechanic arts, or by going down to the sea in ships, but 

 there must nevertheless be, somewhere, some larger agricultural com- 

 [Senate No. 63. J B 



